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GUNDA

Directed by Victor Kossakovsky

Louverture Films is a Co Producer

FESTIVALS & AWARDS

  • London Critics’ Circle Film Awards 2021 - Nominee Best Documentary of the Year

  • Academy Awards 2021 - Shortlist Best Documentary Feature

  • Cinema Eye Honors Awards 2021 - Winner Cinema Eye Honors Award The Unforgettables, Nominee Outstanding Achievement in Direction, Nominee Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography, Nominee Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking, Nominee Outstanding Achievement in Editing

  • Nordic Council 2021 - Nominee Nordic Council’s Film Prize

  • Amanda Awards 2021 - Winner Amanda Award Best Sound Design, Winner Amanda Award Best Cinematography

  • Russian Guild of Film Critics 2021 - Winner White Elephant Best Documentary

  • American Society of Cinematographers 2021 - Nominee ASC Award Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Documentary Film

  • IDA Awards 2021 - Shortlisted IDA Award Best Feature

  • European Film Awards 2020 - Nominee European Film Award European Documentary

  • Critics’ Choice Awards 2020 - Nominee Best Documentary Feature, Nominee Best Director, Nominee Best Cinematography, Nominee Best Editing, Nominee Best Science/Nature Documentary

  • Florida Film Critics Circle Awards 2020 - Nominee FFCC Award Best Cinematography, Nominee FFCC Award Best Documentary

  • Satellite Awards 2021 - Nominee Satellite Award Best Motion Picture, Documentary

  • Indiewire Critics’ Poll 2020 - Nominee ICP Award Best Cinematography

  • DOCNYC 2020 - Shortlisted

  • Phoenix Critics Circle 2021 - Nominee PCC Award Best Documentary Film

  • Nordisk Panorama Film Festival 2021 - Nominee Nordic Documentary Film Award Best Nordic Documentary

  • International Film Festival Cinematik 2021

  • Helsinki International Film Festival 2021

  • DMZ International Documentary Film Festival 2021

  • Norwegian International Film Festival 2021

  • New Horizons International Film Festival 2021

  • Dokufest International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2021 - Nominee Green Dox

  • Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival 2021

  • La Rochelle Film Festival 2021

  • Iceland Documentary Film Festival 2021

  • Singapore International Festival of Arts 2021

  • CPH DOX 2021

  • Hong Kong International Film Festival 2021

  • FICUNAM 2021

  • Vilnius International Film Festival 2021

  • Sofia International Film Festival 2021 - Winner Special Mention Best Documentary Film

  • Kosmorama Trondheim International Film Festival 2021

  • Glasgow Film Festival 2021

  • Dublin International Film Festival 2021 - Winner Dublin Film Critics Award Best Cinematography

  • Luxembourg City Film Festival 2021

  • DocPoint - Helsinki Documentary Film Festival 2021

  • IDFA 2020

  • Stockholm International Film Festival 2020 - Winner Bronze Horse Best Documentary

  • Hawaii Film Festival 2020

  • Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival 2020

  • Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2020

  • Philadelphia International Film Festival 2020

  • Denver International Film Festival 2020

  • Virginia Film Festival 2020

  • Montclair Film Festival 2020

  • Adelaide Film Festival 2020

  • Middleburg Film Festival 2020

  • Antenna Selects / Antenna Documentary Film Festival 2020

  • Bergen International Film Festival 2020 - Nominee Best Norwegian Documentary

  • Hamptons International Film Festival 2020

  • Camden International Film Festival 2020

  • Crested Butte Film Festival 2020

  • Zurich Film Festival 2020

  • Filmfest Hamburg 2020 - Winner Audience Award

  • New York Film Festival 2020

  • La Roche-sur-Yon International Film Festival 2020 - Nominee Grand Prix du Jury

  • Berlinale 2020 - Nominee Berlinale Documentary Award, Nominee Encounters Award

In the vastness of the living world, we share our planet with billions of farm animals. However, in industrialized societies we are conditioned to ignore the sentience of these animals, often regarded as a passive resource. Where his prior film AQUARELA was a reminder of the fragility of human tenure on earth, in GUNDA, master filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky offers a radically recalibrated moral universe, where encounters with a mother sow (the eponymous Gunda), two ingenious cows, and a scene-stealing, one-legged chicken, remind us of the inherent value of life for all beings.

By returning a pig's gaze, listening to a cow's gentle lowing, or observing a chicken find its wings, Kossakovsky voids any pretension that we are unique in our capacity for emotion, consciousness or will. Immersed in these animals’ lives, lived to the full in joy and pain, it becomes inescapable that humankind must swiftly undertake the major changes necessary to end mass exploitation of our fellow creatures. GUNDA is Kossakovsky’s deeply personal attempt to renew our vision of life and meditate on the mystery of all animal consciousness, including our own.